By David Shepardson<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) \u2013 The U.S. Department of Transportation will next week brief lawmakers about the abrupt shutdown of Texas\u2019 El Paso airport earlier this \u200bmonth, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Friday, \u200cadding the decision had not been a mistake.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration halted traffic at the airport on February 10 and initially said the shutdown would last 10 days, only to reverse course and lift the order \u200cafter \u200babout eight hours.<\/p>\n
Reuters and other outlets \u2060reported last week that the \u2060FAA closed the airspace because of concerns about a military laser-based anti-drone system that was being tested at nearby Fort Bliss.<\/p>\n
Duffy, who oversees the FAA, said last week \u200bon social media that the closure had been prompted by a drone incursion by a Mexican drug cartel. However, \u2060a drone sighting near an airport \u2060would typically lead to a brief pause on \u200btraffic, not an extended closure.<\/p>\n
Asked if his social media post about \u200bthe incident was wrong, Duffy said at a press \u200cconference: \u201cI use the information that I get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers said the incident showed a lack of coordination between government agencies.<\/p>\n
Duffy rejected that idea, saying he worked well with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, \u2060Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n
The sudden closure of the nation\u2019s 71st busiest airport by the FAA \u2060stranded air travelers \u200cand disrupted medical evacuation flights overnight.<\/p>\n
Government and \u2060airline officials told Reuters last week the FAA \u200bclosed \u200cthe airspace due to concerns the counter-drone \u200bsystem could \u2060pose risks to air traffic. The agencies had planned to discuss the issue on February 20, but the Army and Homeland Security Department opted to proceed without FAA approval, sources said, which prompted the FAA to halt flights.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing \u200bby Nia Williams)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) \u2013 The U.S. Department of Transportation will next week brief lawmakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-173837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}